QUICK THREAD on UK covid situation...
Cases in the UK are going up. We've had high cases for several months now - over 2.7 million confirmed cases since Delta took over in mid May. And no sign of coming down any time soon. 1/9
By nation, Scotland has by far highest rates right now (800/100K people/week). Then come NI & Wales - but NI is decreasing & Wales increasing. Plus Wales has v high positivity rates - that's bad.
England is flattest & lowest right now. Everywhere way higher than year ago. 2/9
Geographically we can see the high numbers in Scotland, NI and Wales. In England cases are highest in the North and parts of Midlands (again), and the SW. English cases flat in adults but rising steeply in under 20s... 3/9
In terms of hospitalisations, NI has very high number of people in hospital but it's flattening (now that cases there are falling). But Scotland and Wales are on steep upwards trajectory.
English hospital occupancy climbing slowly but surely - burden mostly in North again. 4/9
In terms of admissions, levels in England are far lower than Jan peak... but this week we reached 900 a day for first time since February. And we've had high levels for a long time - adding over 5K admissions a week for several weeks now. 5/9
For Scotland, admissions are increasing rapidly again after July dip, following recent v high cases. Now over half of January peak.
Vaccines have weakened the link a lot but it's still there, and cases have consequences. 6/9
Deaths are going up slowly but they are going up. While way lower than January, we are 10x higher than Spring. Since 1 July more than 5,000 people have died.
Right now, about 1,000 people are dying with Covid every week. I don't think we should be OK with this. 7/9
While vaccines are v protective, a lot of the people dying are vulnerable older people.
We should be protecting our frail members of society by lowering community transmission, not just shrugging our shoulders.
We are also causing harm by overburdening NHS. 8/9
And yes, it's perfectly possible to be open and keep Delta down in a highly vaccinated population through sensible additional mitigations (such as masks & ventilation) - many European countries have manged it. 9/9
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